CHAPTER III.

The blindness of your hatred over-reaches itself, and involuntarily eulogizes us.

WHY, the majority in their blindness are so driven into hatred of it, that even while bearing good testimony to any one they join with it reproach of the name: 'A good man, Caius Seius, only he is a Christian.' Or again, 'I wonder at a sensible man like Lucius suddenly becoming a Christian.' No one considers whether it is not because he is a Christian that Caius is good, and Lucius prudent, or therefore a Christian because prudent and good. They praise what they know, they blame what they are ignorant of; and what they do know they mar by their ignorance, although it would be more equitable to form a judgement upon the hidden from the seen than to condemn the seen from the hidden.

Others stigmatize on the very grounds on which they praise them, those whom they knew formerly in [12] their pre-Christian days as vagabonds, worthless, and base. In the blindness of their hatred they are driven into pronouncing a eulogium. 'What a woman! how wanton, how gay! What a youth! how profligate, how licentious! They have become Christians.' Thus the name is credited with their reform. Some even strike a bargain between their own interests and such hatred, being content to suffer loss, provided only they can rid their homes of the objects of their hatred. The husband, no longer jealous, casts off his wife now chaste : the father, formerly patient, disinherits his son now dutiful: the master, formerly mild, banishes from his sight his slave now faithful: each one, as he is reformed by this name, becomes offensive. The improvement counts for nothing in comparison with hatred of the Christians.

Now then, if this hatred is directed against the name, what is the guilt attaching to names? What accusation can be brought against words, except that a certain pronunciation of a name sounds barbarous, or is unlucky or abusive or obscene? But 'Christian,' as far as its etymology goes, is derived from 'anointing.' And even when it is incorrectly pronounced by you 'Chrestian ⁹' (for not even is your acquaintance with the name accurate), it is formed from 'sweetness' or 'kindness.' In innocent men, therefore, even an innocent name is hated.

But you will say that the sect is hated at all events on account of its Founder's name. Yet what is there [13] novel in the fact of any school taking an appellation for its adherents from its master's name? Are not the philosophers named from their masters, Platonists, Epicuraeans, Pythagoreans? and even from their places of meeting and resort, Stoics, Academics? physicians too from Erasistratus, grammarians from Aristarchus, and even cooks from Apicius? Nor does this adoption of the name, transmitted with the system from its founder, offend any one. Of course if any one proves the sect to be a bad one, and consequently its Founder to be a bad man, he will also prove the name bad and deserving of hatred from the guilt of the sect and its Founder. It were therefore proper, before hating the name, first to form a judgement either of the sect from its Founder, or of its Founder from the sect. But now, without any investigation or knowledge of either, the name is seized upon and made the subject of attack, and a single word pre-condemns the sect and its Founder, both alike unknown,—and all because they are so named, not because they are convicted of guilt.